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Perfidious

adjective
1.
Tending to betray; especially having a treacherous character as attributed to the Carthaginians by the Romans.  Synonyms: punic, treacherous.  "The perfidious Judas" , "The fiercest and most treacherous of foes" , "Treacherous intrigues"



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"Perfidious" Quotes from Famous Books



... many things attempted in this book is the encouragement of charity, and free and genial manners, and the exposure of humbug, of which there are various kinds, but of which the most perfidious, the most debasing, and the most cruel, is the humbug ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... where men take the part of gods, and as she gazed the mockery went out of her song and she sang of love alone. Such a love as women know who love one man forever and hold all his love in return, yet the words were the same as those of false Giuletta when she fled with the perfidious Dapertutto. ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... them, but I have hidden them from him, for they would completely depress him. The marble statue of Marshal Montcornet is pronounced utterly bad. The bas-reliefs are allowed to pass muster, simply to allow of the most perfidious praise of his talent as a decorative artist, and to give the greater emphasis to the statement that serious art is quite out of his reach! Stidmann, whom I besought to tell me the truth, broke my heart by confessing that his own opinion agreed with that of every other ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... late events raised them. Neither his temper nor his convictions would allow him to beg peace of them, like his predecessor; but he had inordinate trust in the influence of his name, and he now took a course which he hoped might answer his purpose without increasing their insolence. The perfidious folly of Denonville in seizing their countrymen at Fort Frontenac had been a prime cause of their hostility; and, at the request of the late governor, the surviving captives, thirteen in all, had been taken from the galleys, gorgeously ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... assassinated in his own house? Why was Scaevola, the high-priest, that pattern of moderation and prudence, massacred before the statue of Vesta? Why, before that, were so many illustrious citizens put to death by Cinna? Why had Marius, the most perfidious of men, the power to cause the death of Catulus, a man of the greatest dignity? But there would be no end of enumerating examples of good men made miserable and wicked men prosperous. Why did that Marius live to an old age, and die so happily at his own house in his seventh consulship? ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... urge the request, and will confess the obligation; that riches, victory, and paradise will crown their pious enterprise; and that eternal damnation will be the penalty of their neglect, if they suffer his tomb, his temple, and his people to fall into the hands of the perfidious Lombards." ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... tyrants—you by the picture of prosperity which in your vast country has succeeded to a bloody struggle of eight years; we by that enthusiasm which glows in the breast of every Frenchman. Astonished nations, too long the dupes of perfidious kings, nobles, and priests, will eventually recover their rights, and the human race will owe to the American and French nations their regeneration and a ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson

... bloody and interminable war, the consequences of which no man can foretell. The French army, Marshalls, and Generals have covered themselves with indelible Disgrace and shewn themselves, what I always thought them, the most perfidious and perjured traitors and miscreants that the world ever produced, and the rest of the French Nation are a set of the most unprincipled Knaves and Cowards that ever were recorded in history. I trust however that their punishment is at hand and that the Almighty ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... future. The most sagacious and experienced politician could not see with any clearness three months before him. To a man of virtue and honour, indeed, this mattered little. His uncertainty as to what the morrow might bring forth might make him anxious, but could not make him perfidious. Though left in utter darkness as to what concerned his interests, he had the sure guidance of his principles. But, unhappily, men of virtue and honour were not numerous among the courtiers of that age. Whitehall had been, during thirty years, a seminary of every public and private ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... they fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.' Now art thou truly Sultan of Sultans. To-morrow—the twenty-sixth of March—will be memorable amongst days, for then thou mayst begin the war with the perfidious Greek. From four o'clock in the morning the stars which fought against Sisera will fight for Mahommed. Let those who ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... I feel constrained before a lake as before a person whom I know to be false and perfidious. Of course, the sea is dangerous, but no one is ignorant of its caprices, its violence, its tragic love bouts with the wind. The sea is open, whether in laughter or fury. See, look off there," she said, standing upon the rock. "This evening it is calm as a lake, and still the waves are all rippling, ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... uncultivated, as at the first instant of the creation. "The earth was WITHOUT FORM AND VOID."(34) This is saying but little: it was wholly polluted and impure, (the reader will observe that I speak here of the heathens), and appeared to God only as the haunt and retreat of ungrateful and perfidious men, as it did at the time of the flood. "The earth was corrupt before God, and ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... him, although she had a sweetheart of her own, a young man named Paul Petrofsky, who also lodged in the Goldsteins' house. At last Moses broke off with Miriam, and engaged himself to Minna. Then Miriam was furious, and complained to Minna about what she called her perfidious conduct; but Minna only laughed, and told her she could ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... "Peers of France, Deputies of Departments, I have no doubt of your co-operation in carrying out the good measures I propose. You will repulse with contempt the perfidious insinuations which malevolence seeks to propagate. If criminal manoeuvres were to place obstacles in the way of my government, which I neither can, nor wish to, foresee, I should find the power of surmounting them in a resolution ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... was, that Pitt, with his Ferdinands and reinforcements, found work for the French ever onwards from Rossbach; French also turning as if exclusively upon perfidious Albion: and the thing became, in Teutschland, as elsewhere, a duel of life and death between these natural enemies,—Teutschland the centre of it,—Teutschland and the accessible French Sea-Towns,—but the circumference of it going round from Manilla and Madras to Havana and Quebec again. Wide-spread ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... To this perfidious suggestion what could the States' envoy reply but that as a peace such as the treaty of 1585 presupposed—to wit, with security for the Protestant religion and for the laws and liberties of the provinces—was impossible, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Therefore I am forced to deal the death-blow! No, no, I will not; I have even braved the vengeance of my perfidious master in order not to imbue my hands in his blood, and I will not now be guilty of it. But what can I do? I have no other alternative. I must either bury him alive or kill him! And I cannot stay ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience

... free! Air and wave are not more free!" And the madman laughed with horrible glee. "She is fair—fair," he said, abruptly checking himself, and with a changed voice, "but not so fair as the Dead. Faithless that thou art—and yet she loved thee! Woe to thee! woe! Maltravers, the perfidious! Woe to thee—and ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the top of our bent. The cat, however, is equally free from illusions and from hypocrisy. If we aspire to a petty omnipotence, she, for one, will pay no homage at our shrine. Therefore has her latest and greatest defamer, Maeterlinck, branded her as ungrateful and perfidious. The cat of "The Blue Bird" fawns and flatters, which is something no real cat was ever known to do. When and where did M. Maeterlinck encounter an obsequious cat? That the wise little beast should resent Tyltyl's intrusion into the ancient realms of night, ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... ought to listen to the voice of prudence, your majesty," exclaimed Hardenberg, emphatically. "Now, prudence renders it necessary for you to fight at this juncture against the perfidious enemy, who never fulfilled his treaties, never kept his word, and is even ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... the enemy, and going into them, doing all the evil offices they can, against their native kingdom. If Meroz was cursed for not helping, shall not these perfidious covenant-breakers and treacherous dealers against a distressed land be much more accursed, for helping and assisting a destroying enemy, so far as lieth in their power? These words may be truly applied to them who are helping strangers, enemies to God, His kirk, ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoto, as called of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that before had attended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea, where guilty beings transformed into those fowls and these fish, seemed condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat that black air without any horizon. But calm, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... sailors of the collier schooner forbore to jeer him, until he was afloat, when they gave him three fine rounds of mock cheers, to which the poor Frenchman contributed a shriek. For this man had been most inhospitably treated, through his strange but undeniable likeness to a perfidious Briton. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... of my expected arrival in Liverpool, Reardon, who was kept informed of all my plans by my perfidious clerk, personated me with such success that even Alice was deceived. He met her in a room very dimly lighted, and under the pretense that he was very much hurried by the captain, who wished to avail himself of wind and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... sound, From premises erroneous brought, And therefore the deduction's naught, And must have contrary effects, To what her treacherous foe expects. In proper season Pallas meets The Queen of Love, whom thus she greets, (For gods, we are by Homer told, Can in celestial language scold:)— Perfidious goddess! but in vain You form'd this project in your brain; A project for your talents fit, With much deceit and little wit. Thou hast, as thou shall quickly see, Deceived thyself, instead of me; For how can heavenly wisdom prove An instrument to earthly ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... of superior abilities, and a statesman of profound wisdom, acted as the guardian of Hono'rius. He was descended from the perfidious race of the Vandals, and unfortunately possessed, in an eminent degree, the cunning, treachery, and cruelty that characterised his nation. The administration of the Eastern empire was entrusted by Arca'dius, to Rufi'nus, who possessed all the bad qualities of Stil'icho without his redeeming ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... elapsed, before the perfidious Cherokees broke out again in a fresh place, killing and driving the defenceless inhabitants at a most barbarous rate. Marion instantly flew again to the governor with the tender of his services to fight for his afflicted countrymen. His excellency was so pleased with this second instance of ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... against the use of them, for purposes favorable to the interests and views of the enemy, further provisions on that subject are highly important. Nor is it less so that penal enactments should be provided for cases of corrupt and perfidious intercourse with the enemy, not amounting to treason nor yet embraced by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson

... native energy led me to admire the exploits of my uncles, and filled me with a longing to share in them, the cold-blooded cruelty they perpetrated on returning from their expeditions, and the perfidious artifices by which they lured their dupes to the castle, in order to torture them to extort ransom, roused in me strange and painful emotions, which, now that I am speaking in all sincerity, it would be difficult for me ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... sod, mark reader, as you pass The carcase buried of a great jack-ass: Perfidious, smiling, fawning, cringing slave, Hell holds his spirit, and his flesh this grave. Corruption revels in a kindred soil: A carcase fatted on an ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... bulwark of his country, sacrificing his life to delay that ruin which he knew it was beyond his power to avert—snatching, amid the bloody scenes around him, a moment for the indulgence of a father's pride and a husband's tenderness, from the perfidious paramour flying from the vengeance of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... owing to the devices of the friends of Great Britain in this country, and not in the least to any disaffection from Russia, &c. How can people be helped, that will not be helped? In the meantime, the enemies carry on with success their perfidious scheme. Congress by this time must have heard of their taking St Eustatia, filled with riches, a great part of which they say is American property. And now they pretend by this stroke to have cut off the great resource of America ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... with all necessaries, and designed them as auxiliaries for Antony. But Antony said he had no want of his assistance; but he commanded him to punish the king of Arabia; for he had heard both from him, and from Cleopatra, how perfidious he was; for this was what Cleopatra desired, who thought it for her own advantage that these two kings should do one another as great mischief as possible. Upon this message from Antony, Herod returned back, but kept his army with him, in order to invade ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... in the Argo, young Silas Talbot encountered the perfidious King George to the southward of Long Island and riddled her with one broadside after another, first hailing Captain Hazard by name and cursing him in double-shotted phrases for the traitorous swab that he was. Then the seagoing infantry scrambled over the bulwarks and tumbled the ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... half-way, either the top half or the bottom half. One may even have the pleasure of opening them a little at the top and a little at the bottom, but not at all in the middle. The sun cannot enter openly, nor the air. The window keeps its selfish and perfidious character. I hate the English windows. But now I love London and—is there ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... to "amuse" her relatives and save her honour. In October, 1746, his wife, by the advice of her friends and in accordance with Scots practice, raised in the Commissary Court at Edinburgh an action of declarator of marriage against her perfidious spouse, and the case was still pending before the Commissaries when Lord Mark Kerr, as we have seen, "gave away" his grand-nephew to ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead

... north, Captain Thorn arrived in a few days at Vancouver's Island, and anchored in the harbor of Neweetee, very much against the advice of his Indian interpreter, who warned him against the perfidious character of the natives of this part of the coast. Numbers of canoes soon came off, bringing sea-otter skins to sell. It was too late in the day to commence a traffic, but Mr. M'Kay, accompanied by a few of the men, went on shore to a large village to visit Wicananish, the ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... would have felt, and with reason, that we had deserted them. It is, therefore, quite possible that, if Germany, after a rapid initial success, had proposed very generous terms, they might have patched up a peace at our expense, and in effect told Germany that she might have as much of the perfidious British Empire as she required. Germany would almost certainly have been willing to agree to such an arrangement. Her rulers, like Napoleon, knew that they could not rule Europe unless the naval supremacy of the British Empire was destroyed. In a word, it was quite clear that if we, France, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... private virtue. In France, however, or, at least among certain parties in France, there has been no such modification of opinion. With the Republicans, Pittetcobourg is Pittetcobourg still,—crafty, bloody, seeking whom he may devour; and perfide Albion more perfidious than ever. This hatred is the point of union between the Republic and the Empire; it has been fostered ever since, and must be continued by Prince Louis, if he would hope to ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... than ten years the people had seen the rights which were theirs by a double claim, by immemorial inheritance and by recent purchase, infringed by the perfidious king who had recognized them. At length circumstances compelled Charles to summon another Parliament; another chance was given to our fathers: were they to throw it away as they had thrown away the former? Were they again to be cozened by le Roi le veut? Were ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... double tongued, double faced, double handed, double minded, double hearted, double dealing; Janus faced; smooth- faced, smooth spoken, smooth tongued; plausible; mealy-mouthed; affected &c 855. collusive, collusory; artful &c. (cunning) 702; perfidious &c 940; spurious &c (deceptive) 545; untrue &c 546; falsified &c v.; covinous. Adv. falsely &c adj.; a la tartufe, with a double tongue; silly &c (cunning) 702. Phr. blandae mendacia lingua[Lat]; falsus in uno falsus in omnibus[Lat]; "I give him joy that's awkward ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Mr. Soames commence his career of duplicity at the flat of Henry Leroux; and for some twelve months before the events which so dramatically interfered with the delightful scheme, he drew his double salary and performed his perfidious work with great efficiency and contentment. Mrs. Leroux paid four other visits to Paris during that time, and always returned in much better spirits, although pale and somewhat haggard looking. It fell to the lot of Soames always ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... reign'd the great Nash, this omnipotent lord, Respected by youth, and by parents ador'd; For him not enough at a ball to preside, The unwary and beautiful nymph would he guide; Oft tell her a tale, how the credulous maid By man, by perfidious man, is betrayed: Taught Charity's hand to relieve the distrest, While tears have his tender compassion exprest; But alas! he is gone, and the city can tell How in years and in glory lamented he fell. Him mourn'd all the Dryads on Claverton's mount; Him Avon deplor'd, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... the battles on the Po at Cremona, and in the marshes of Caravaggio. In 1454, Venice, the first of the states of Christendom, humiliated herself to the Turk; in the same year was established the Inquisition of State, and from this period her government takes the perfidious and mysterious form under which it is usually conceived. In 1477, the great Turkish invasion spread terror to the shores of the lagoons; and in 1508 the league of Cambrai marks the period usually assigned as the commencement of the decline of the Venetian power; the commercial ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... industry, with all its innumerable ramifications, is suddenly reduced to a state of complete stagnation. This rival, who is no other than the sun, carries on so bitter a war against us, that we have every reason to believe that he has been excited to this course by our perfidious cousins, the Britishers. (Good diplomacy this, for the present time!) In this belief we are confirmed by the fact that in all his transactions with their befogged island, he is much more moderate and ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... he was now, as it seemed, about to be her punisher. Her chastisement was just. She reaped that which she had sown. After the Restoration, when her power was at the height, she had breathed nothing hut vengeance. She had encouraged, urged, almost compelled the Stuarts to requite with perfidious ingratitude the recent services of the Presbyterians. Had she, in that season of her prosperity, pleaded, as became her, for her enemies, she might now, in her distress, have found them her friends. Perhaps it was not yet too late. Perhaps she might still be able to turn the tactics of her faithless ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Lacedaemonian manner. Timaeus writes, that the Syracusans sent even Gylippus home dishonorably, and with a reputation lost by the unsatiable covetousness he displayed when he commanded the army. And numerous historians tell us of the wicked and perfidious acts committed by Pharax the Spartan, and Callippus the Athenian, with the view of making themselves kings of Sicily. Yet what were these men, and what strength had they, to entertain such a thought? The first of them was a follower of Dionysius, when he ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... indulgence for your numerous faults, the freedom with which she mocks the Platonicians, all this encouraged you to hope that she was not very severe, but you have just discovered your mistake. All this outward show was nothing but deceitful and perfidious allurements. To take advantage thus of the good faith of any one—I must confess that it is a conduct which cries for vengeance; she deserves all the names ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... affectionate and subtly penetrating—that the disagreeable feeling of repugnance, which the first sight of him generally inspired, wore off little by little, and he almost always finished by involving his dupe or victim in the tortuous windings of an eloquence as pliant as it was honeyed and perfidious; for ugliness and evil have their fascination, as well as what is good ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... authority for the statement that the Lusitania had been armed with guns. And when Norwood hooted at this, every German in the room was up in arms. What did he have to disprove it? The word of the British government! Was not "perfidious Albion" ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... brethren, was chasing some flies which were buzzing about a bunch of neglected or castaway flowers before the window. The pupils of Cuvier had stretched a net there to catch sparrows; one of the claws of the swallow was caught by the perfidious net. At the cry which this hair-brained swallow made, a score of his brethren flew to the rescue: but all their efforts were in vain; the desperate struggles which the prisoner made to free himself from the fatal trap only drew ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... of the individual are often lacking in the spokesmen of nations; a statesman representing not himself but his country may prove, without incurring excessive blame—as history often records—vindictive, perfidious, and egotistic. These qualities are familiar in treaties imposed by victors. But the German delegation did not succeed in exposing in burning and prophetic words the quality which chiefly distinguishes this transaction from all its ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... One."[FN531] I asked, "And who be that daughter of the Wily One?" Whereupon she laughed and replied, " 'Tis she who hath companied with thee this day for a year and four months (may the Almighty destroy and afflict her with one worse than herself!) By Allah, there liveth not a more perfidious than she. How many men hath she not slain before thee and what deeds hath she not done. Nor can I understand how thou hast been all the time in her company, yet she hath not killed thee nor done thee a mischief." When I heard her words, I ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... Jane Grey Perfidious Brother Hecuba Solon Persian Princess Scowerers Ulysses, an ...
— The Annual Catalogue (1737) - Or, A New and Compleat List of All The New Books, New - Editions of Books, Pamphlets, &c. • J. Worrall

... population; that it will still cling with affection and pride to that government which was their guarantee, and which no power now on earth is competent to shake. It is not against the deluded, the timid, or the helpless of the South that we would make the indictment for political crime. It is the perfidious pro-slavery spirit in politics that we seek ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... reached the masses, and competition has so effectually limited the profits, that every rapidly made fortune is the result of chance, or of a discovery, or of some legalized robbery. The lower grades of mercantile enterprise have retorted on the perfidious dealings of higher commerce, especially during the last ten years, by base adulteration of the raw material. Wherever chemistry is practised, wine is no longer procurable; the vine industry is consequently waning. Manufactured salt ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... government, under the republic, under the usurper, Napoleon; who had retaken office under the Bourbons and the Jesuits who had returned in their train, and who, on this occasion, was the representative of the criminal and humbled French nation, ventured, nevertheless, to offer his perfidious advice to the victors, and, with diabolical art, to sow the seed of discord among them. This conduct was the more striking on account of its glaring incongruity with the proclamation of Calisch, which expressly declared that the internal affairs of Germany were wholly ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... work is slack, He kicks a leather ball about; Recalls old tales of wing and back, The Villa's rush, the Rovers' rout; Or lays a tanner to a pup On Albion (not "perfidious") ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various

... concerned. Setting aside all the petty squabbles which rent the land, the indignant princes gathered their forces and placed them under Otho's command. By the 1st of October the late fugitive found himself at the head of a considerable army, and prepared to take revenge on his perfidious enemy. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... little cost To you, with malice aforethought, To send (and with intent to kill him, And on this blessed day, when nought But Saturnalian joys should fill him) Your friend Catullus such a set Of murderous authors; but the debt I'll pay, be even with you yet— For no perfidious friend I spare. At early dawn, ere the sun shine, I Will rise, and ransack shop and stall, Collect your Caesii and Aquini, And that Suffenus: and with care And diligence, will have all sent To you, for a like punishment. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... which the Allies landed at Salonica. Their action has been pronounced immoral and perfidious by some English and even by some French critics; and as it was attended with ill success, it brought double shame upon the contrivers.[18] Certainly, it will not bear investigation from the standpoint of political ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... reason to complain, if you had spoken to me without dissembling; you would then have sounded the death-knell of my hope; but my heart could have blamed fortune alone. But to see my love encouraged by a deceitful avowal on your part, is so treacherous and perfidious an action, that it cannot meet with too great a punishment; I can allow my resentment to do anything. No, no, after such an outrage, hope for nothing. I am no longer myself, I am mad ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere

... French have taken this part only for their own security, and to procure adherents to the common cause; but this is all I contend for—that the politics of the old government actuate the new, and that they have not, in abolishing courts and royalty, abolished the perfidious system of endeavouring to benefit themselves, by creating distress and dissention among their neighbours.— Louvois supplied the Protestants in the Low Countries with money, while he persecuted them in France. The agents ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... tributary to or an integral part of the English territories, whether by subjugating or expatriating the natives." In 606 AEthelfrith rounded the Peakland, now known as Derbyshire, and marched from the upper Trent upon the Roman city of Chester. There "he made a terrible slaughter of the perfidious race." Over two thousand Welsh monks from the monastery of Bangor Iscoed were slain by the heathen invader; but Baeda explains that AEthelfrith put them to death because they prayed against him; a sentence which strongly ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... has been sullied in this part of the world by many perfidious actions, but of a truth I cannot instance any more despicable and repellent incidents than those which have marked the course of events during ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... Camillo received an anonymous letter, which called him immoral and perfidious, and warned him that his adventure was known to all. Camillo took fright, and, in order to ward off suspicion, began to make his visits to Villela's house more rare. The latter asked him the reason for his prolonged absence. Camillo ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

... What we heard, however, must be set down. Silas Upham asked us to spend Sunday at his house. At dinner I sat next pretty little Hetty, and at once she spoke of Wilkins. To my annoyance, Ajax introduced the ridiculous Dinah, the perfidious creature of his fancy. Ajax was in his salad days, but he ought to have known, even then, that if you want to interest a maid in a man, tell her that the man has suffered at the hands of another maid. Hetty's blue eyes sparkled, her dimpled cheeks glowed ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... upbraid you with a repetition of your former vows and protestations, nor will I recapitulate the little arts you have practised to ensnare my heart; because, though by dint of the most perfidious dissimulation you have found means to deceive my opinion, your utmost efforts have never been able to lull the vigilance of my conduct, or to engage my affection beyond the power of discarding you ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... campaigns, I could have equalled your clemency and humanity; but the Gauls are more uncertain, fierce, and perfidious than the wildest tribes of Caucasus; and our policy cannot be carried with us, it must be formed upon the spot. They love you, not for abstaining from hurting them, but for ceasing; and they embrace you only at two seasons—when stripes are fresh, or when stripes are imminent. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding, and crooked courses, are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice, that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge? Saith he, If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... Hear me Perfidious Sorceress, impious Megera Hell's Tesiphon, and Harpye of the World; I full well know you can with Ease Make Fishes swim and slide in th' Air, All winged Birds to flye amidst the Waves; Congeal the Fire and make it freeze, Cause Ice ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym

... in 1858, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, whose views were generally distinguished for their moderation, said: "I do most confidently maintain that no civilised Government ever existed on the face of this earth which was more corrupt, more perfidious, and more capricious than the East India Company was from 1758 to 1784, when it ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... them, not a commercial but a martial republic—a republic not of simple husbandmen or fishermen, but of intriguers, and of warriors—a republic of a character the most restless, the most enterprising, the most impious, the most fierce and bloody, the most hypocritical and perfidious, the most bold and daring, that ever has been seen, or indeed that can be conceived to exist, without bringing on ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... ravishing and inimitable? It is because in them the accord is perfect between the look, the smile, the gesture and the impression within, of which they are the interpreters—the adequate signs, as Delsarte would say—the perfidious flexibility of words never interposing to ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... we see and know of the operations of the rebels in this part of the South (the Southern coast, where he has been stationed), and from what we see perfidious Englishmen doing for the rebels, we are fast becoming strong abolitionists. We feel that now Slavery must receive its death-blow, and be destroyed forever from the country. You would be surprised ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... dispensation. Though Spain did not care to occupy it, Cuba and the Main being too engrossing, she determined that no other power should do so. She therefore took advantage of disturbances which arose there, in consequence, the French writers affirm, of the perfidious ambition of Albion, and chased both parties out of the island. The French soon recovered possession of it, which they solely held in future; but many exiles never returned, preferring to woo Fortune in company with the French and English adventurers who swarmed in those seas, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... 'had I not entirely freed myself from all party feeling, I might adduce the success of my perfidious and worthless relative as very good demonstration that the spirit of the age is nothing better than an ignis fatuus. Nevertheless, we must discriminate. Even the success of Jupiter, although he ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli

... in his own domains, surrounded by his relatives and friends, Count Julian went on to complete his web of treason. In this he was aided by his brother-in-law, Oppas, the Bishop of Seville: a man dark and perfidious as the night, but devout in demeanor, and smoothly plausible in council. This artful prelate had contrived to work himself into the entire confidence of the king, and had even prevailed upon him to permit his nephews, Evan and Siseburto, the exiled sons of Witiza, to return into Spain. They ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... to card-room traps, Yet making fearful faces Because his foes, perfidious chaps, Have always all the aces— "Ruined! the old place mortgaged! faugh!" (The guttering candles quiver)— Instead of draining brandy raw Clenches a jujube in his jaw And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various

... and Mr. Grimshaw, what would he do about it? Then I thought of Pepper Whitcomb. Dire was the vengeance I meant to wreak on Pepper, for who but he had betrayed me? Pepper alone had been the repository of my secret—perfidious Pepper! ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... do not ask for this most perfidious flower, which pierces all who touch it! Never speak to me of the Rose, Blondine. You cannot know what fatal danger ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur

... to be burnt, and said: "Why have you, a man, done this perfidious thing in my house?" His demons and peris collected ambar-wood and made a pile, and would have set me on it, when I remembered the word of life which the two peris I had rescued had breathed into my ear, and I asked that my body might be rubbed with oil to release ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... well-weighed the outcome of the words you have just uttered? Have you measured the full extent of your pledge, and its depth? With your hand on your heart and on your conscience, are you a man to fulfil those words? Or are you one of the falsely humble and perfidious men who throw themselves at our feet only to make us lose the balance of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... James Crawford, John Province, and John Harden. The latter of these gentlemen afterwards removed to Kentucky and became distinguished in the early history of that state, as well for the many excellencies of his private and public life, as for the untimely and perfidious manner ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... pulling out a watch of English make, "but in your next letter. I start for Paris in an hour's time. You will hear of things soon which will add very greatly to the weight and success of this grand enterprise. We shall have perfidious Albion caught in her own noose, as you shall see. You have not heard of one Captain Wright, and the landing-place at Biville. We will have our little Biville at Springhaven. There will be too many of us to swing ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... himself to be all that the Duchess had asserted, but he liked to hear his own opinion confirmed by the lips of others; and, although smarting under the mortification of wounded vanity occasioned by the contents of the letters of his perfidious mistress, he smiled complacently upon Madame de Villars, thanking her for her zeal and attachment to his person, and assuring her that both were ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... oaths; and upon the other hand the sense we desire to retain of the plagues and curses, threatened by God in his word against covenant-breaking inflicted upon covenant-breakers in former ages, and foreign nations, and visibly impending upon us in these nations, for our perfidious dealing in God's covenant; hath moved us a poor insignificant handful of people, unworthy indeed to be called the posterity of our zealous reforming ancestors, though heartily desirous to be found adhering ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery

... Templars. The Pope professed great distress and astonishment that an order that had so long enjoyed the respect and gratitude of the Church for its worthy deeds in defence of the faith should have fallen into grievous and perfidious apostasy. He then narrated the commendable zeal of the King of France in rooting out the secrets of these men's hidden wickedness, and gave particulars of some of their confessions of the crimes with which they had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... to commit treason—you had waited till he was so entangled that he could not escape, or in future refuse to obey the orders of the Jacobite party—you had seduced him, Nancy Corbett—you had intoxicated him—in short, Nancy, you had ruined him, and then you threw him over by this insidious and perfidious letter. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... to France, The Duke being at the Rose, within the Parish Saint Laurence Poultney, did of me demand What was the speech among the Londoners, Concerning the French Iourney. I replide, Men feare the French would proue perfidious To the Kings danger: presently, the Duke Said, 'twas the feare indeed, and that he doubted 'Twould proue the verity of certaine words Spoke by a holy Monke, that oft, sayes he, Hath sent to me, wishing me to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... they go on quacking like frogs from their holes? "They broke their promise to Huss and Jerome," is their reply. Who broke it? "The Fathers of the Council of Constance." It is false; they never gave any promise. But anyhow, not even Huss would have been punished had not the perfidious and pestilent fellow been brought back from that flight which the Emperor Sigusmund had forbidden him under pain of death; had he not violated the conditions which he had agreed to in writing with the Kaiser and thereby nullified ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... carry me from your Lodging) led me into an old ruined Monastery, where it pleased Heaven, by what Accident I know not, to direct you. I need not tell you how you saved my Life and my Honour, by revenging me with the Death of my Perfidious Guide. This is the summ of my present Condition, bating the apprehensions I am in of being taken by some of my Relations, and forced to a thing so quite contrary to ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve

... back to Europe, visits under a false name the town in which her faithless husband and his bride are living, discovers the truth and divulges the intended crime to the authorities. A sentence of penal servitude for life rewards this perfidious criminal.(9) ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... destruction. But know this, Charles Stuart, that, when we draw the sword again, it is the sword of judgment. Out there many call you the man of blood. I have laboured for you, have met them all in persuasion. I had prevailed. It is finished. Blood is upon us again, blood spilled for a perfidious king. The sword that we had put by for ever! My God, how I have feared it! Well, so be it. We go to the field again—but then, prepare you for the reckoning. It shall be ...
— Oliver Cromwell • John Drinkwater

... calamity, and you will have the satisfaction of perusing at least one honest address. You are well acquainted with the dissection of human nature; nor do you need the assistance of a fellow-creature's bosom to inform you, that man is always a selfish, often a perfidious being.—This assertion, however the hasty conclusions of superficial observation may doubt of it, or the raw inexperience of youth may deny it, those who make the fatal experiment we have done, will feel.—You are a statesman, and consequently are not ignorant of the traffic of these ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... Hodges; "and I think it better on many accounts not to mention the subject to your father. It would only distract his mind, and prevent him from duly discharging the painful task he has undertaken. Were I in your place, Amabel, I would not only forget my present perfidious lover, but would instantly bestow my affections on ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... cried I, "may Heaven's everlasting fury light upon him and his! Thus to rob me of my child! Bring me my pistols; I'll pursue the traitor. Old as I am, he shall find I can sting him yet—the perfidious villain!" ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... and began the ascent to the forest. The slope grew more and more abrupt, and ere long he discovered that he had wandered from the foot-path. He was not one to be easily disheartened; he continued climbing, laying hold of the brushwood with his hands, planting his feet among perfidious pine-needles, which form a carpet as smooth as a mirror, making three steps forward and two backward. Great drops of perspiration started out on his brow, and he sat down for a moment to wipe them away, hoping ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... succours. After six days, the queen of Prom, who administered the government, offered to become tributary if he would grant a peace; but the king insisted that she should put herself into his hands with all her treasure. She refused these degrading terms, knowing his perfidious character, and resolved to defend the city to the last extremity. The king of Siam accordingly gave several assaults, in all of which he was repulsed, and in a short time, lost above 80,000 of his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... foes, the perfidious, Be war to the knife. Intrepid, yet duteous, We leap to the strife. More terrible shewing In danger's red hour; We know to avenge, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... along with the cafila. The camel, however, falling to kicking, flung the Cogia to the earth and knelt upon him. The Cogia cried out loudly, and the people of the cafila came and rescued him. After a little time the Cogia, coming to his senses, said, 'O Mussulmen, did you not see how that perfidious camel maltreated me? Now do hold the perfidious brute for me, that ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca

... craze possessing our newspaper press, that Russia was, or might be, brewing evil against India. We can all see the absurdity of such reveries when exemplified by our quicksilver neighbour France, bouncing for ever in her dreams about insults meditated from the perfidious England; but we are blind to the image which this French mirror reflects of our own attitude towards Russia. One hundred and fifty years ago, the incubus which lay heavy on the slumbers of England was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... this person, desirous above all things of putting the matter competently, yet secretly perturbed as to what might be considered superfluous and what deemed a perfidious suppression, ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... once, however imprudent and out of place such action might be. He was, moreover, utterly unconscious of the fact that he was nothing but a tool which both Tyope and the Naua wielded to further their perfidious designs. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... midst of this glorious and beneficent career, at the age of fifty-five (57?), Caesar, whose frank and fearless spirit disdained suspicion or precaution, was assassinated by a knot of rancorous, perfidious aristocrats, whom he had pardoned and promoted. Their purblind spite was powerless to avert the inevitable advent of monocracy. What they did effectually extinguish for more than a century, was the possibility of amnesty, conciliation, and mutual confidence. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... actors, and you had the meanness to put to death men who had never harmed you, and who, by your own confession, you had robbed of their arms, but whom you had, nevertheless, promised their lives. This was not an evidence of courage, but of cowardice. By this perfidious act you also violated your promises, and proved yourselves to be the ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... upon her arrival at court, "she at once pleased every one by her grace and affability, modest air, and, above all, by her extreme gentleness," she could not have changed, say her defenders, into the perfidious, wicked, and cruel creature she is said to have become as soon as she stepped into power. "During the reign of Henry II., she wisely avoided all danger; faithful to her wifely duties, she gave no cause for scandal, and, realizing that she was not strong enough to overcome her all-powerful rival, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... land, where I am called to seal the same with my blood; and I wish heartily that this my poor life may put an end to the persecution of the true members of Christ in this place, so much actuated by these perfidious prelates, in opposition to whom, and testimony to the cause of Christ, I at this time lay down my life, and bless God that he hath thought me so much worthy as to do the same, for his glory and interest. Finally, Concerning a christian duty, in a singular and extraordinary ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... "These base and perfidious words infused the most fatal jealousy into the heart of my spouse: she gave me no opportunity, however, of perceiving that she entertained any suspicions. At the time fixed between us, I returned to my father's house and my ordinary business, and when I went back to the lady ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... be destroyed, and that its inhabitants must build another city ten miles distant from the coast." When this terrible news reached Carthage, despair and rage seized all the citizens. They resolved to perish rather than submit to so perfidious a foe. All the Italians within the walls were massacred; the members of the former government took to flight, and the popular party once more obtained the power. Almost superhuman efforts were made to obtain means of defense; ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... seldom on the Spider's side. The Wasp has her ruses of war, her cunningly premeditated strokes: the Spider has her wiles and her set traps; the first has the advantage of great rapidity of movement, while the second is able to rely upon her perfidious web; the one has a sting which contrives to penetrate the exact point to cause paralysis, the other has fangs which bite the back of the neck and deal sudden death. We find the paralyser on the one hand and the slaughterer ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... these steps by the advice of Cecil, who likewise directed Sir Thomas Gresham to send over coin from Holland, and to purchase arms and munitions of war. Cecil was thoroughly cognisant of the designs of the Spaniards, and he had soon a proof of their perfidious intentions. A squadron under the command of Sir John Hawkins had been driven into the port of Saint Juan d'Ulloa in the Bay of Mexico, and was suddenly attacked by a Spanish fleet, the commander of which had just before been professing ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... no means reconciled to the loss of Silesia, and she began to lay her plans for expelling the perfidious Frederick and regaining her lost territory. This led to one of the most important wars in modern history, in which not only almost every European power joined, but which involved the whole world, from the Indian rajahs of ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... merchandize. And such rubbish was offered in exchange for a group of God's creatures, with his divine image stamped upon them! At length the progress of the bargain came to what might be called a crisis. The Soudanese merchants jumped up suddenly, with shouts and curses, as if they had discovered a perfidious fraud, and rushed to the door, pulling their miserable slaves after them. I felt shocked at the sight, and my horror must have been depicted in my countenance. For Haj Ibrahim, who well knew I disapproved ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... quoted for a most perfidious slave, With all the spots o' the world tax'd and debauch'd: Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth: Am I or that or this for what he'll utter, That ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... conceived; I shall not attempt to describe it. In this heroic fury, I swore never more to see the perfidious girl, supposing it the greatest punishment that could be inflicted on her. This, however, did not occasion her death, for twenty years after, while on a visit to my father, being on the lake, I asked who those ladies were in a boat not ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... "False and perfidious woman! now I see and know your treason! And would not a squire and a knight suffice you, but you must give yourself up to a priest? This vexes me more than all the other ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... those tents?" asked the colonel. "Each tent contains eleven or thirteen men, and one spirit animates the whole—that is, the conquest of perfidious Albion." ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... that intuition, that nervous imagination, that quick perception of character, which have become the proverbial characteristics of cultivated women. They know how to render themselves impenetrable; and if they desire to be perfidious, they wear a mask which few eyes can see through, while at the same time a certain sameness of purpose models their character in similar moulds. Their nature is an enigma: but solve it, and you have solved the race. They are inordinately vain: they buy looking-glasses; they will pass hours at their ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... admitted by the Spaniards to be "quite providential,"[110] as it prevented the French from assisting Navarre. English indignation was loud and deep; men and officers vowed that, but for Henry's displeasure, they would have called to account the perfidious King. Condemned to inactivity, the troops almost mutinied; they found it impossible to live on their wages of sixpence a day (equivalent now to at least six shillings), drank Spanish wine as if it were English (p. 058) beer, and died of dysentery like flies in the autumn. Discipline relaxed; ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... I must confess, are great; Yet still, I fear, you know not half his falsehood. Who, that had eyes to look on beauty; Who, but the false, perfidious Essex, could Prefer to Nottingham a Rutland's charms? Start not!—By Heaven, I tell you naught but truth, What I can prove, past doubt; that he received The lady Rutland's hand, in sacred wedlock, The very night before his setting ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones

... of which administration had so much vaunted. But powerful as they supposed that system to be, they were not inclined to depend on its efficacy, such as they had tried it. They therefore now resorted to a measure which has hitherto been used only by irritated victors over perfidious and vanquish'd enemies—they sent them troops, not to disarm the inhabitants of a district, or to act with discretionary powers for, what was now a general pretext for violence of every species, the preservation of the public peace; but permanently to live at free quarters on ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous

... direction of the crafty commodore, the valuable cargo of the Maggie II was disposed of in Honolulu. During the period while the schooner lay at the dock discharging Captain Scraggs and McGuffey prudently remained in the cabin with the perfidious mate, in order that, should an investigation be undertaken later by the Treasury Department, no man might swear that the real Phineas Scraggs, filibuster, had been in Honolulu on a certain date. The Kanaka crew of the schooner Mr. Gibney ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... successions of families,—by the sale of guardianships and trusts, held most sacred among the people of India: by the sale of them, not, as before, to farmers, not, as you might imagine, to near relations of the families, but a sale of them to the unfaithful servants of those families, their own perfidious servants, who had ruined their estates, who, if any balances had accrued to the government, had been the cause of those debts. Those very servants were put in power over their estates, their persons, and their families, by Mr. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... France with the utmost speed and fierceness, the war is really a war of defense against Russia, which might desirably pass over, after France has been crushed, into a war against Great Britain, that perfidious and insolent obstacle to Germany's world empire. The answer to this explanation is that, as a matter of fact, Germany has never dreaded, or even respected, the military strength of Russia, and that the recent ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... given to us as to what to do and what not to do in this perfidious climate that we were ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... scaffold and in the field, in defense of their country and virtue; this is my hope—I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High, which displays its powers over man as over the beasts of the forest, which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God, against the throat of his fellow who believes ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... read with attention and interest the discussions in the Vienna papers, to which the performance of the Preludes and the concert gave rise. As I had previously said to you, the doctrinaire Hanslick could not be favorable to me; his article is perfidious, but on the whole seemly. Moreover it would be an easy matter for me to reduce his arguments to nil, and I think he is sharp enough to know that. On a better opportunity this could also be shown to him, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... the window through which De Guy had entered flew open, and Hatchie leaped into the room. Without giving Jaspar or his accomplice time to recover from the surprise of his sudden entrance, he levelled a blow at the lawyer, and another at the perfidious brother, which placed both in a rather awkward position on the floor. Hatchie then seized the envelope containing the will, and made his escape in the manner he had entered, well knowing that Jaspar would not hesitate to take his life ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton

... time of adversity he found a faithful friend in Canonchet, chief Sachem of all the Narragansetts. He was the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great sachem who, as already mentioned, after an honorable acquittal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately put to death at the perfidious instigations of the settlers. "He was the heir," says the old chronicler, "of all his father's pride and insolence, as well as of his malice towards the English;" he certainly was the heir of his insults and injuries and the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... doubtful, melancholy state they are at present, (which, however, God forbid) and trust entirely to the general aversion of our people against this coin; using all honest endeavours to preserve, continue, and increase that aversion, than submit to apply those palliatives which weak, perfidious, or abject politicians, are, upon all occasions, and in all ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... until Francesco Valori, in brief and furious speech, made the determination of his party more ominously distinct by declaring that if the Signoria would not defend the liberties of the Florentine people by executing those five perfidious citizens, there would not be wanting others who would take that cause in hand to the peril of all who opposed it. The Florentine Cato triumphed. When the votes were counted again, the four obstinate white beans no longer appeared; the whole nine were of the fatal affirmative black, deciding the ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... civilized world on its financial shoulders has arisen between the North and the Irish seas. That is the picture that stands at the opening of 1915, where before Germany had endeavored to stamp the label "Perfidious and degraded ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron

... themselves of what is now considered a burden, by disposing of the individual to some heartless trader. This is done unknown to the victim, and the news, when it reaches her, drives her almost frantic; she at once seeks her perfidious paramour, and finds to her dismay, that he has been gone some days on a tour to the provinces, and is, perhaps, a thousand miles off. Tears and protestations avail her nothing, the trader is inexorable, she belongs to him by law, and go she must; at length, having ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... Dutch, the original natives of this island were so cruel, perfidious and intractable, that they were forced to root them out in a great measure for their own security, and to send a Dutch colony to occupy the island: But such a colony as has not much mended the matter, being entirely composed of a rascally good-for-nothing people, who were either ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... of her race," cried the captain. "They always abuse other nations and cry out that they are betrayed when ill luck comes to them, instead of trying to help themselves, as we perfidious Englishmen do." ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... showing his profound respect for an excellent Sovereign. He speaks thus of the commencement of the reign of Henry the Third. "The kingdom was recently delivered from a bitter tyrant, King John, and had likewise got rid of their perfidious deliverer, the Dauphin of France, who after the English had accepted him for their King, had secretly vowed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... father; the deception he practises upon him when he pretends to lead him to the top of Dover-cliff—'Come on, sir, here's the place,' to prevent his ending his life and miseries together; his encounter with the perfidious Steward whom he kills, and his finding the letter from Gonerill to his brother upon him which leads to the final catastrophe, and brings the wheel of Justice 'full circle home' to the guilty parties. The bustle and rapid succession of events in the last scenes is surprising. But the meeting ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... of the public papers took any notice of this affair; no satisfaction was required. The Prussians, no doubt, were ashamed of being defeated in an attempt so perfidious. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... uproar, the slenderest, loveliest shrubs, peep forth from among these hideous rocks, like children smiling in the midst of danger. As we stood looking at this tremendous scene, one of our friends made us remark, that the poison alder, and the poison vine, threw their graceful, but perfidious branches, over every rock, and assured us also that innumerable tribes of snakes found their dark dwellings ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... "You perfidious creature, I see I must never tell you anything, for you are sure to come out with it at all times and ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... from the nature of my connexion, it is to be wished you would use discretion, even in the accounts that you give to the general Congress. Every thing that passes in your great assemblies is known, I cannot tell how, at the court of Great Britain. Some indiscreet or perfidious citizen sends an exact account of your proceedings to the palace of St James. In times of great exigency, Rome had a dictator; and in a state of danger the more the executive power is brought to a point, the more certain will be its effect, and there will be less to fear from indiscretion. It ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... Albert had scarcely retired from Prague before Ottocar immured in a convent the daughter he had promised to one of the sons of Rudolph, and sent a letter to the King of the Romans, filled with the most violent invectives, and charging him with a perfidious intention of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... deliverer, "since you have been so generous as to protect a noble stranger from the danger of such a false accusation, I hope you will still lay an additional obligation upon the Count, by retorting the vengeance of the law upon his perfidious accuser, whom I know to be a trader in those articles of merchandise which are prohibited by the ordinances of this nation. I have seen him lately at Boulogne, and am perfectly well acquainted with some persons who have supplied him with French lace and embroidery; ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... our sight. This conduct instantly roused our fear; and with one accord we sprang to our feet. We gazed around. Turn which way we would, the grim visage of a painted warrior met our terrified gaze, with his tomahawk in one hand, and his rifle in the other. "Perfidious villain," exclaimed Ralph, "and this is an Indian's faith." An Indian of gigantic size, dressed in all the gaudy trappings of a chief, now strode towards us. Ralph raised his gun, and closed his eye as the sight of the weapon sought the warrior's breast. "Don't shoot, and you will be treated ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... was evidently due to the Hunnish victory, is assigned by the Gothic historian to a cause less humiliating to the national vanity. The king of the Rosomones, "a perfidious nation", had taken the opportunity of the appearance of the savage invaders to renounce his allegiance, perhaps to desert his master treacherously on the field of battle. The enraged Hermanric, unable to vent his fury on the king ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... in a tone of great surprise; "I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake—I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... and wicked affairs, to dissolve the most important relations, to break the strongest ties; that life, health, riches, rank, and happiness are sometimes sacrificed for its sake; that it makes the otherwise honest, perfidious, and a man who has been hitherto faithful a betrayer, and, altogether, appears as a hostile demon whose object is to overthrow, confuse, and upset everything it comes across: if all this is taken ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... embarrassed their movements, and drove them to an inglorious retreat. On the other hand, the English, mistrusting the faith of their Indian allies, and suffering from a frightful mortality, burned their canoes and advanced posts, and retreated from the frontier. The perfidious Iroquois, while professing the closest friendship, had poisoned the stream hard by the British camp, and thus caused the fatal malady which decimated their unsuspecting allies. The fleet destined for the attack of Quebec never crossed the Atlantic: it was sent to Lisbon instead, to support ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... soul of the journeyman recoiled before thoughts of murder; he contented himself with appropriating the dagger, and bridling for himself the faster horse of the prince; and, ere Omar awoke to see himself despoiled of all his hopes, his perfidious companion was ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... great state, but greatness belongeth to God alone.[FN358] When the two came up with each other, they dismounted and embraced, and Gharib said to Sahim, "O my brother, hast thou brought our tribe to the Castle of Sasa and the Wady of Blossoms?" "O my brother," replied Sahim, "when the perfidious dog Mardas heard that thou hadst made thee master of the stronghold belonging to the Mountain-Ghul, he was sore chagrined and said, 'Except I march hence, Gharib will come and carry off my daughter Mahdiyah without dower.' So he took his daughter ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... used to clothe it with moral attributes, and almost to give it a soul. I admired its frank, bold, honest character; its noble sincerity and perfect truth. Here was no specious, smiling surface, covering the dangerous sand-bar or perfidious rock; but a stream deep as it was broad, and bearing with honorable faith the bark that trusted to its waves. I gloried in its simple, quiet, majestic, epic flow; ever straight forward. Once, indeed, it turns aside for a moment, forced from its course by opposing mountains, but it ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... mistaken, you see, perfidious villain," cried Nicholas. "You have yet to render an account of all the wrongs you have done me, but meantime you shall not ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Set of dancing masters! Do you know what it is? They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. Aren't they trying to make an Entente cordiale now at Tay Pay's dinnerparty with perfidious Albion? Firebrands of Europe ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce



Words linked to "Perfidious" :   perfidy, treacherous, punic, unfaithful



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